I was thinking of checking this out for myself yesterday, but luckily Riding Sun took the initiative and researched the recently announced winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.

I looked at the twenty photographs and broke them into groups on the basis of content. Here are my results:

• U.S. troops injured, dead, or mourning: 3
(2, 3, 11)
• Iraqi civillians harmed by the war: 7
(4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13, 18)
• Insurgents looking determined or deadly: 3
(6, 15, 20)
• US troops looking overwhelmed or uncertain: 3
(7, 12, 14)
• US troops controlling Iraqi prisoners: 2
(16, 17)
• Iraqis celebrating attacks on US forces: 2
(1, 19)

Equally telling is what the photos don't show:

• US forces looking heroic: 0
• US forces helping Iraqi civillians: 0
• Iraqis expressing support for US forces: 0
• Iraqis expressing opposition to insurgents: 0

Maybe it's just that pictures like the one below, which can be found all over the internet, are taken by our men and women in the field and not by the "professionals".